


Love and the Logical

by fallovermelikestars



Series: Love and the Logical [1]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallovermelikestars/pseuds/fallovermelikestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were never together, not in the socially accepted sense of the word anyways, but at the same time they were never not, either. Now Chris has Will, is so so close to loving Will and yet still there's Darren. It's unexplainable and Chris doesn't care to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and the Logical

**Author's Note:**

> Do not even ask where this came from because I don't even know. This started life as less than a thousand words at the back end of Darren's tour, sat in my docs for a while and then somehow became this. 
> 
> Thank-you, always, to [insatiablyyours](http://archiveofourown.org/users/insatiablyyours/pseuds/insatiablyyours), for the super fast [alpha]beta. You're my favourite.

“You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” Will says quietly into his ear and Chris startles. Will always does that: appears from fucking nowhere, all stealth and twinkling eyes, throwing Chris totally off-kilter. He could hate the man for it, but he doesn’t; whatever it is he feels, it’s a long long way from hate.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says coolly, raising an eyebrow and placing a hand on his hip, mock indignant but also genuinely puzzled: it’s true, he really doesn’t know. He also kind of doesn’t care, because he’s just on the right side of tipsy, and Will is still standing just that little bit closer than he needs to be – God, Chris has such a crush on this hot-older-hot-super funny-hot-super clever-hot-never going to be interested in his 22 year old self-hot guy. Has had a crush on Will for such a long time, and it’s a crush that seems to intensify with each moment he spends with him to the point that sometimes all he can think about is what it would feel like to have Will’s hands on him, those long fingers undressing him; touching him; making him fall apart.

It’s kind of liberating to feel like that about somebody like Will. Somebody available. Somebody potentially uncomplicated.

 “You...” Will says, leaning a little closer and lowering his voice, “are fucking Darren.”

 And, well, fuck.

“Darren has a girlfriend,” he retorts. He hopes he’s actually not as red in the face as he feels like he is and looks pointedly over to where Darren’s arm is thrown casually over the back of the sofa with Mia sitting beside him, thigh to thigh. Chris has been struggling with that all night. He loves Mia, he really really does, but her hand is so high on Darren’s leg that he’s sure that each imperceptible movement of her pinky finger brushes against his cock, and quite frankly, Chris wishes it were him. Darren keeps looking over, always as aware of Chris as Chris is of him, and the way he looks at him when their eyes meet makes something twist in Chris’s stomach. However big his crush is on Will, what he feels for Darren is on another plane entirely, and that’s fine, most of the time. Most of the time they have it figured out: they’re best friends, and sometimes they’re more, and they both know where they stand, and it’s fine.

Other times though, it’s just difficult. 

“That’s hardly an answer,” Will says.

“It should be.”

“And yet...” 

Chris sighs. The problem is that he is just on the right side of tipsy that lends itself to his tongue being looser. Will is hot and such a good fucking listener – and really, there aren’t many people that he can talk to about _any_ of this. 

“We’ve never actually _fucked_ ,” he attempts, and Will grins triumphantly. It’s a little wolfish altogether, the curve of his mouth and the glint in his eye, and Chris huffs out a sigh. Will pokes his shoulder, still grinning. 

“I knew it.” 

“We can’t talk about this here,” Chris says a little desperately, looking around them. Nobody actually seems to give a shit; Chris knows that being overheard is a risk they can’t take and yet, God, he really wants to _talk about it._

Will looks at him for a long moment, eyes soft and searching. Chris wonders how many people before him have crumbled under that gaze.

“Go sit out there.” Will points back over his shoulder to where an empty canopy swing rocks gently in the breeze like it’s waiting, just for them. “I think this is going to take a beer.” 

: : 

“Spill.’ Will drops onto the seat and folds a leg beneath him. He holds out a beer and his knee bumps Chris’s. Chris can’t help moving just a little into the touch. If Will notices then he doesn’t react, he just pushes the swing gently with the foot still on the ground and waits. 

“There’s really not much to say.” 

“Bullshit. Start with, Darren’s bi.” 

“Darren’s...Darren.” Chris corrects and smiles a little, can’t help the way his mouth turns up at the corners and his eyes crinkle. Will grins back, and nudges his knee a little. There isn’t really much to say, though. Chris kind of wishes there was. It’s hard to put it into words, this thing that exists between Darren and him, this thing that started late one November night a couple of years ago after a too-long day filming, when they’d all stumbled into one taxi or another, acting under the influence of a heady mix of caffeine pills and spirits and lack of sleep – Chris and Darren had wound up back at Darren’s place. Chris wasn’t even 21 and was so unused to drinking, and he’d wanted _so much_. There’d been sheer panic in Darren’s face afterwards – not because he didn’t want it too, but because what if he’d taken advantage of Chris? They’d tried to _not_ , but there had always been something bubbling just beneath the surface, and it had intensified on tour. This _whatever_ between them still feels like it means something even though Chris isn’t entirely sure what that something is.

“He has a girlfriend,” he says again. Will doesn’t comment. “He has a girlfriend but she’s been in New York and he’s been here, and their relationship is...different. He’s crazy in love with her, of course he is, she’s amazing, but they’re different. We’re all _different_. She– Mia, she knows: it’s not some sordid secret affair.And he’s my best friend probably, except for Ashley. And he’s hot.” That last part is almost an afterthought, but fuck it’s true. Darren Criss, the fucking dork, is the hottest guy Chris has ever been lucky enough to meet. 

“You’re a booty call, then?”

Chris studies Will’s face for traces of judgement and comes up empty.

“No. No, it’s not like that.” 

Except, how does he explain what it is like? How does he explain how sometimes they get in Darren’s car and just drive – don’t touch, don’t speak – for hours, perfectly content just to be in that small space and together; how they can talk for hours and hours and hours about nothing but about everything (everything, actually, but _this_ ); how long workdays find them dozing on set curled into each other, touching everywhere there’s visible skin; how when Darren kisses him he feels his stomach swoop every single time; how sometimes it feels like Chris is a planet orbiting Darren’s sun. 

“She’s moving to LA, anyway.”

And that’s something he tries not to dwell on: what that will mean. How things will change once Darren’s girlfriend is in LA every day; here where Darren is and not in another state entirely. Will Chris fade into the shadows, or will Darren still eat his Chinese takeout one-handed just so he can tangle their fingers together? 

Will hums, takes a mouthful of beer and then says, “So that will be that, then? Your time as the other man will come to an abrupt end once his girlfriend moves in and he has sex on tap.” 

“It’s not like that.” Chris is struggling not to be offended. “I’m not the _other man_. It’s not as black and white as all that. I, he– he’s not using me and it’s not seedy. It’s just, it’s complicated. It’s a friendship that doesn’t have lines drawn as clearly as you might normally expect, I guess. We don’t even hook up that often; we haven’t for weeks. It’s not about _sex._ It’s about how it feels like we just _fit_.” 

“I get that,” Will says soothingly, grabbing Chris’s hand. “I do. I just think... You’re a great guy, Chris, and you deserve someone who can see that.”

 _Darren can_ , Chris thinks, because sometimes he feels like Darren is the only person who really _can_ see him. 

“If Darren gets to have his cake then so should you.” Will’s smiling that cheeky smile that makes Chris’s stomach flutter. “And if it’s not about the sex, then I should be able to take you out, right?” 

Chris looks at him warily because this feels like it’s coming at him totally out of left field and he’s never quite sure how he feels about that – doesn’t like it when the ground is uneven beneath his feet, when he isn’t in control of where the conversation is going. Will smiles back, pleased as punch; the cat with the cream.

“Chris Colfer. I’m taking you on a date.”

: : 

“I’m seeing someone,” he tells Darren one day. They’re in Chris’s trailer during a break in filming and Chris is still Kurt, dressed in clothes that are hardly comfortable and perched on the edge of the sofa with one leg crossed carefully over the other. Sometimes he finds it hard to shake Kurt off before he’s had a shower and dressed in his own tatty jeans, adopts his character’s mannerisms even in his downtime. He clasps his hands over his knee as he talks, avoiding Darren’s eye. Darren has no such problem, can shift from Darren to Blaine and back again in the blink of an eye. He’s kicked off his shoes and is cross-legged on the floor, looking not at all like Blaine, only like an over-gelled version of himself; nobody could ever accuse Chris of character bleed. 

“Alright,” Darren says carefully, rubbing at his chin as though he already misses the shadow of stubble he’d had to shave away that morning. “I’m guessing you mean Sherrod?” 

“How?” Because Chris thought they’d been being careful. It’s early in its days – they’ve only been seeing each other a few weeks, and although they share a lot of friends and have spent a lot of time together, they’ve only been on a handful of dates on their own. Will has only stopped over twice. 

“Your face tells a story that a thousand words could never express.” 

“Asshole.” 

Darren grins, “He’s _everywhere_ lately. The double act that was Colfer and Fink seems to have expanded to include a third. You’ve said no to three movie nights and one offer of free sushi in the last six weeks, and your reason everytime has been you’re seeing Will. I know he was the last to leave after the pumpkin carving night at your place, which makes me wonder if he left at all, and...’ Darren holds a third finger in the air. “–that t-shirt you wore on Saturday night is the same one he wore when he showed up with you and Ashley to that thing last week. Clothes sharing, Chris, it’s the biggest clue of all. You can just call me Columbo.” 

“You wear my clothes all the time,” Chris points out. “It proves nothing.” 

Darren just quirks an eyebrow and, well, fine. 

“It’s ok, though? You’re ok?” 

Darren looks at him searchingly. “Are you ok?’ 

Chris nods, because he is ok, he really really is ok, and yeah it might be a little weird discussing this with Darren (and yeah he might have been dreading this conversation for days) but it’s not like Darren and he are – or ever were – dating, and Chris actually isn’t just ok but he’s genuinely, heart-racingly happy. 

“Then it’s ok,” Darren says simply. “Mia’s in town this weekend, we should all get some food. ...D’ya think we have time to nap?” 

“Your hair, though.”

“A shorter nap and a quick trip to make-up. Spoon me, Christopher.’ 

: : 

The thing is that being with Will is easy. It’s so fucking _easy_ because Will is so fucking amazing. He’s amazing to be around, smart and witty and gentle and so attentive that sometimes Chris just wants to cry. 

Will’s all holding hands in the dark of the movie theater and tangled ankles beneath the dinner table, and when they go to Europe for New Years Chris isn’t quite brave enough yet to hold his hand in public, but Will always stands close enough that he doesn’t need to, not really. His hand is always there in the small of Chris’s back, sometimes before Chris even realises he needs it there, solid and grounding. When Chris feels that panic begin to bubble in the pit of his stomach because he still finds it overwhelming sometimes, all this fame, Will just kisses him ‘til Chris forgets his own name. 

They fall into it, almost. One date becomes two and then a third, when Will crowds him up against the wall in his apartment and licks into his mouth – and suddenly there’s an extra toothbrush in Chris’s bathroom and clothes that aren’t his in his drawers and an ever-present packet of allergy tablets because Will knows better than to make Chris choose between him and the cat. There’s Thursday night TV marathons and Friday night parties and Sunday morning sex that makes Chris’s toes curl. There’s Tuesday nights, too, or any time they can really, because Will is gorgeous and Chris can’t keep his hands – or his mouth – off him. 

It’s nice to have somebody, somebody who’s sort-of-his, who he can take to events and who isn’t scared off by the shitstorm that he feels like his life can be some days. Will handles the media, the fans, the whole being in the public eye thing like a pro, takes it all in stride with this look of intense pride on his face the whole damn time and Chris loves him for it a little bit. He’s fit so easily into Chris’s life – or rather, they have fit so easily into each other’s – that now he struggles to remember a time Will wasn’t there; can’t imagine anymore how he wasn’t always aware of the gaping Will-shaped space by his side that’s there now when he’s away. Ashley loves him, obviously, and doesn’t seem at all fazed by the fact that he’s taken her place at Chris’s side; Alla loves him; Chris’s parents and Hannah adore him; he fits perfectly into Chris’s circle; and best of all, he gets on with Darren. Chris wonders once in a while whether maybe Darren has a bit of a crush on Will – wouldn’t blame him if he did because _those abs_ are reason enough. They’re at a Semi Precious Weapons gig when Will tells Mia that he’s managed to convince Chris to go with him to Coachella, and Chris thinks Darren’s smile could probably be seen from space.

As it is, they don’t spend much time together that weekend. It’s always been Darren and Mia’s thing, Coachella.  One weekend a year that they carve out for themselves, and Coachella is traditionally Will’s big weekend with his friends. He’s so eager to include Chris, to share it all; Chris just goes with it, is happy to fall into step with him. While he always thought festivals wouldn’t be his thing, he can’t help but get swept away by Will’s enthusiasm. 

Darren is drunk when they do bump into him, drunk and Chris thinks maybe a little high. Mia’s tan and gorgeous in her long floaty dress and she pulls Will into a tight hug, cackling loud and dirty at something he says. Chris just looks at Darren, who’s lost his shirt and shoved it carelessly through his belt loop, and wonders how he manages to shine so brightly even in the dark. Darren smiles at him, all scrunched up eyes and bright white teeth, looks like he wants to pull him into a hug but doesn’t do so. Cameras, there are always cameras somewhere, and neither of them can really be bothered with the backlash involved, especially not here, not when Darren tries so hard to keep under the radar, to protect his girl as much as he can.

“Isn’t this just the shit, though?” he says, gesturing grandly with his hands, as though this, this whole manic and wonderful weekend is all his own doing. Like he made it all happen just to see Chris smile. “I kept telling you how fucking awesome it is.” 

“I’m having the best time,” Chris agrees, reaching blindly for a dinosaur-tattooed arm behind him and smiling a little harder when familiar fingers tangle with his. Will steps closer, hooking his chin over Chris’s shoulder: “We saw The Lumineers.” 

Mia smiles at them, shimmying as she sings, _“You’re my sweetheart_ ” and winking at them. Chris smiles as Will turns to press a kiss to his jaw.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Will whispers later, pushing Chris back against his sleeping bag and pressing close-mouthed kisses all over his face. Chris had offered to book a hotel for the weekend but Will had just laughed in his face. Now, Chris is kind of glad: it’s cozy in the tent like this, just the two of them. Romantic.

“Because being with me offers you a heightened VIP Coachella experience?” Chris teases, hooking a calf round Will’s thighs and holding him close.

“Well, there’s that,” Will agrees, “but mostly, everything is so much better when I get to share it with you.”

He’s so earnest, so genuine, and he says these things so easily, like it takes nothing at all for him to tell Chris how much brighter he makes his life. He wishes sometimes that he was more like Will in that respect, that he could say so simply _everything is better when I get to share it with you, too_ , but he isn’t and he can’t, even though it’s true. It’s so so true. Instead he just kisses him hard, biting down on Will’s bottom lip hard enough to make him gasp and whispering, “I’ve never fucked in a tent before.” 

: : 

“It’s going to be insane,” Chris warns Will one day in May when they’re playing around with designs for Chris’s birthday party and talking about plans for after he’s done with filming for Glee, plans that will tie some of Chris’s work commitments in with another vacation in Europe. “I mean, more insane than it’s been already.” He screws up his nose. “If that’s even possible.” 

Will smiles easily. “You’re kind of worth it, Colfer.” And he leans in, kissing the frown off Chris’s face. 

: : 

“He loves you,” Darren says matter of factly, jumping to sit on Chris’s kitchen counter and making the most of his elevated vantage point to look down at him. 

“Who loves me?” Chris has his head in the fridge and isn’t paying much attention. Darren reaches out a foot to poke Chris in the ass, making him squeak and turn around, pushing the refrigerator door closed and fixing Darren with a mock glare. Darren just grins, letting his legs fall open and beckoning Chris forward to stand between them. Chris goes, resting his hands on Darren’s denim clad thighs and squeezing gently. 

“William,” Darren drawls. “He is totally head over heels for you.” 

“He is not.” Chris squeezes a little harder, wonders what this feeling is that’s hit him right in the chest. He can’t decide if it feels good or bad, because he’s happy with Will. Will makes him feel happy, but love? Maybe that will just complicate things; loathe as he is to admit it now, and it’s been so long since anything more than a chaste press of lips to lips even happened between them – since Will, probably – Chris still feels safer and more grounded right here with Darren than he does anywhere else. At the same time though, now he can’t imagine a life without Will, a world where Will’s hand isn’t his to hold; where it’s not Will’s voice moaning Chris’s name as Chris lets him come down his throat; where it’s not Will by his side, helping to navigate the crazy. He wants a solid real forever with Will, can really and truly imagine it could happen. With Darren he just _wants._

“You should see the way he looks at you,’ Darren retorts. “He totally loves you.” 

Chris looks away, swallowing hard, and then Darren’s finger is under his chin, forcing him to look back up. 

“That’s a good fucking thing, Chris. Will, he’s fucking awesome, and you are so good together. I mean, you’re happy, right?” 

Chris nods.

“I am, of course I am. I just,” he pauses, swallows again, “I miss...” The words die in his mouth but this is Darren and they’ve never really needed words. 

“I know,’ Darren says, tipping his head so their foreheads touch. “Trust me, man, I fucking know.”

“I can’t believe,” Chris says after a beat, because he has to say something, has to break through this weird atmosphere, “that you are missing my birthday party.”

“I know,” Darren sighs sadly. “It blows. But I’m here now. And on your actual birthday, we have all day. _All day.”_

“Yeah.”

: : 

“We should go to Darren's concert,” Chris says one day in June. 

Will smiles with his head nestled into Chris’s pillows, sleepy and sated and happy, and nods his head. “Okay then.” 

So they go. 

: : 

Chris is glad that he doesn't have to classify this, whatever it is, that exists between the three of them – four if you count Mia. Doesn't have to classify it _yet_. He hopes he never has to, that he can go on forever like this, keeping his cards close to his chest. Only ever letting people see as much as he has to in order to stop them clamoring at him like a pack of wolves. 

He couldn't ever put into words, really, how Will has changed his life, has made him believe in all kinds of things; how Will kisses him and loves him and asks for nothing in return that Chris is unable to give. Will's hand fits so perfectly in Chris's own, his laugh is like music some days to Chris's tired ears and he _shares_. He shares everything with Chris and makes Chris want to share in return; he understands that when he tells Chris he loves him and Chris doesn’t speak, just holds him tighter and kisses him harder, that all there is holding him back is a curly haired man and an ingrained need to hold his heart tight and never let anybody close enough to break it.

A beautiful disaster. 

It's the only way Chris can describe this whole thing with Darren and God if it doesn't sound like high school angst even to his own ears. It's messy and it's intense and it's so fucking perfect.

It's less now: less perfect, less _anything_ , now that there's Will. Chris wonders what that means. Mostly though he just lets it be.

There used to be Mia in New York and Darren and Chris here in LA, entirely unsure but at the same time steadfast in their certainty of themselves; of one another. There used to be desperate kisses and fingertips pressing hard enough to bruise, shared glances held a moment too long and screaming fights resolved by falling asleep atop the covers, legs tangled. They don't do that now; now, there are dinner parties and it’s so much more civilised than Chris is used to but still the most fun he’s had: Mia and Will like a double act, expensive wine and good food and laughter that makes Chris’s sides ache. Now, there are too-casual text messages that never cross a line, photographs sent back and forth like postcards, like unspoken “wish you were here”s. Darren still turns up at Chris's place with food and beer and ends up curling into him on the sofa. 

They were never together, not in the socially accepted sense of the word anyways, but at the same time they were never _not,_ either. Now Chris has Will, is so so close to loving Will and yet still there's Darren. It's unexplainable and Chris doesn't care to try. 

: :

Darren's gig is exactly what Chris had expected and at the same time it’s completely off the charts. He'd be scared (just a little) and stressed (a fuckton) if it weren't for Will shaking his head and laughing beside him; the warm weight of Will’s hand on the small of his back is all it takes to calm him down from that edginess these days. He poses for a few photographs because people are asking him politely and nobody has said _“CrissColfer”_ loudly enough for him to hear, and he scribbles his signature for a couple people even though writing his name on Darren's face makes him feel a bit odd. Will joins in too, posing and signing things, and this has been happening a lot lately.

Chris is sorry but Will just laughs, always so fucking laid back. “I just don't get _why,”_ is all he ever says, with a grin and a shrug. “What're they gonna say? Oh look at this, I got an autograph from Chris Colfer's fuck buddy?” 

“You are _not.”_ Chris is indignant and Will grins harder. 

“No. No, I know I'm not,” he replies and tugs Chris closer by his belt loops.

Darren looks fucking exhausted.

Which is to say he looks incredible, with wild hair and a bit of scruff and that big smile and easy laugh. The man’s loose-limbed and happy but Chris _knows_ him, knows what to look for, and he looks fucking exhausted.

He always works too hard. Once upon a time Chris would try and tell him to calm it down a little – which, he should practice what he preaches he supposes but he never seems to burn himself out the way Darren seems to. Darren would just grin at him, press his lips to Chris’ and pull him down onto the too-hard sofa in the trailer: “Nap with me, then?” he’d reply.

Darren leans into the mic and just the sound of his voice as he talks – low, a little scratchy, and right there, not on the phone or through FaceTime – is enough to make Chris sway a little on his feet. He's grateful for the feel of Will's fingers tangling with his suddenly, like he knows, squeezing gently. Chris holds on tight.

Onstage the heartthrob shines bright under a spotlight and Chris hums along to brand new songs that to him are familiar. He leans a little into Will, feeling sheltered and grounded as he always does by this man, who is older and taller and somehow, without Chris even realising it had happened, his safe place. 

Darren's singing, low and beautiful, _“Even if it’s got your throat, I'll kiss you with the antidote,”_ and there's a flashback to a month or two ago, before the tour started, in Chris's kitchen. Chris stood replying to emails and Darren,  in plaid pyjama pants and no shirt, was frying eggs. He’d sung that song and couldn’t help but wink at Chris, who’d just rolled his eyes and told him the lyric was ridiculous. He hadn’t meant it, really... just, the whole damn song had made something shift in his chest that he didn’t really understand and it was easier to make a throwaway comment than address it. 

“The sentiment's spot on though, right?” 

“Who's it for?” 

“You. Her. Nobody.” Darren had been coy, passing a plate of food across the breakfast bar to Chris and taking a too-big bite of toast. 

“Darren Criss, international man of mystery.”

“Yeah baby.” 

And now he's singing it live, strumming on a guitar. God, he was born to do this and it's not enough suddenly, to be standing here amongst the crowd. Chris hasn't seen Darren (except for through blurry satellite-delayed video) for weeks, hasn't touched him for longer, and he needs more, needs _him._

Darren doesn't know they're there. Chris hadn't said, he doesn't know why. Hadn't wanted to put him under any more pressure, he supposes, although why there would be any pressure, he isn't sure. Originally he’d planned to text Darren later, maybe call from the warmth of the hotel bed while Will curled into him and watched repeats of Fast'n'Loud, but who is he kidding? Darren is right there, almost close enough to touch, and Chris needs to. 

“We should go back,” he yells in Will's ear, “wait for him.”

“We'll miss the encore.” Will always wants the full experience, could become a Darren Criss fanboy quite easily given the chance. Chris thinks it’s kind of adorable. He’s like Darren in that respect: his enthusiasm for everything, the way he always gives 110 percent.

Chris? He doesn't care about the encore. He needs to be where Darren is, without the world as an audience. 

They get backstage without too much trouble. Darren likes to work with people he knows and there are enough people around that know who Chris is. They point him in the direction of Darren's dressing room without even batting an eye.

Will slumps onto the armchair, shoving Darren's abandoned pants aside to make room and letting his head loll backwards. The thud of the bass seems to reverberate around the small room. It smells and feels so much like Darren even though it can only have been his space for a day at most, and Chris paces. He's nervous. He has no idea why. 

“Is it weird?” Will tilts his head a little, enquiring but not accusatory. “Me being here? You want me to meet you back at the hotel? Are you even coming back to the hotel?” 

“What?” Chris spins on his heel and looks down at Will. “Of course I'm coming back, where else would I go? It's not like that with us, you know it isn't.” 

“I know.” Will pauses. “Except it kind of is and that's fine, by the way; I know where I stand, I know how this all works.” 

His eyes grab Chris’s and hold. “I just don't want to make you feel weird.” 

Chris can't argue: Will is right, it kind of is. He just offers a tight smile. “I don't want you to go,” he says, “I just want to see him.” 

Darren is running a hand over his face as he walks into his dressing room and it takes him a moment to realise they're there. Chris can pinpoint the exact moment it happens, the way he stiffens a little when he senses he’s not alone; how his eyes fall to Will on the sofa first and his lips quirk automatically into a smile. Darren fucking loves Will. Chris cannot express the relief he feels at that fact. There’ve been times, since Will and him became an official thing, that it’s felt to Chris like they’ve come close to crossing a line with Darren. Like something heavy hangs in the air between the three of them when they’re alone, charged with _something_ ; like if one of them were to make just the slightest move then the whole world would tilt on its axis. He’s gotten off to the thought of it more times than he’d care to admit, the idea of having both of them naked in his bed. He thinks it will happen, eventually, and he wonders which one of them will close that gap, who will be the one to break. He doesn’t think he’d dare let it be him.

Darren’s grinning at Will and then the realization dawns that if Will is sitting in his dressing room like he belongs there then Chris must be somewhere close by, and he turns. 

“Hey,” Chris says, hands curling and uncurling by his sides, and he hopes Darren doesn't notice. 

“I didn't know you were coming,” Darren states, one eyebrow quirked and sweat glistening on his collarbone. 

“Surprise?” Chris makes jazz hands and wonders why it comes out like a question. 

“Surprise is right.” Darren’s smile is soft; Chris hasn’t seen it in too long.

They stand for a second, Darren in the middle of the room and Chris leaning in the stiffest, most uncomfortable manner imaginable against the table, and just look at each other. It feels all of a sudden like there isn't enough air in the room and Chris wonders why he feels like he's going to cry. 

They've never had to do this before, to be apart like this for so long, and it feels strange, being in the same room again now. Chris's fingers itch to reach out and touch but he doesn't know how, or even if he still can. It feels different to the other times, to other summers or even when Darren was doing his stint on Broadway. Darren always had his thing going on with Mia but back then there was no Will and things were complicated in an entirely different way. It's always been that way with Darren and him, somehow complicated: they’re too close to pass as “just friends” yet still less than anything else. Chris couldn't put them in a box if he wanted to.

“You need a shave,” he says eventually because one of them has to say something.

“You went to Hogwarts without me, you fucker,” is Darren's reply and then they're grinning at each other and Chris holds out a hand for Darren to take, tugging him closer to stand between his legs where he’s perched on the table, and wraps him in his arms. Darren turns instinctively to press his face into Chris's neck, lips pressing a kiss to the skin there. Chris bets he doesn't even know he's doing it. Chris closes his eyes and breathes him in. He's hot and sweaty and he should be disgusting but he just feels like home. When he opens his eyes again and looks over Darren's shoulder to Will, who’s still slumped on the chair but wearing that smile that is reserved for Chris and Chris alone, he feels ok, really completely ok, for the first time in weeks. 

“You were less teen idol than I thought you’d be,” Chris teases lightly, with a small smile. Darren just laughs, loud and easy. That laugh, the one that comes suddenly from nowhere as though it’s caught even Darren by surprise is nothing if not infectious.

“I am the ultimate teen idol, Colfer, watch your mouth. We should get some food.” Darren’s pulling a sweat-damp t-shirt over his head and Chris’s breath catches. One of the things that Chris loves the most about Darren is how unaware he is; right now, though, he kind of hates it, because Darren being this close and half-naked and shiny with sweat? It’s like a special kind of torture. Will’s grinning at him from the sofa like he knows exactly what he’s thinking and Chris narrows his eyes a touch, crossing the room as Darren dresses and letting Will tug him into his lap. 

“Poor baby,” Will breathes into his ear. “Feeling a little hot under the collar?”

“I hate you both,” Chris retorts and Darren turns, looking over at them in surprise.

“What?” 

“Nothing.” Chris shakes his head. “Nothing at all.”


End file.
